The Bravest Man I Ever Knew
by symphonies of you
Summary: "It was the day he had inadvertently called Lily a Mudblood in the heat of the moment. The day he realized his love for his beautiful best friend but lost her." The worst day of his life. ::One-shot::Severus-centric::Trio&Marauder Era::


**Title: The Bravest Man I Ever Knew**

**Genre: Hurt/Comfort**

**Number of words: 3,835**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything you see down there except for my original take on what happened after death for Severus. Everything else belongs to JKR and her only.**

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><p><strong>AN: So I had been one of the lucky people to watch the midnight premiere for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two. It was the most AMAZING finish to the most brilliant series ever written. The film was so hilarious and emotional. I laughed, cried, screamed, and cheered throughout the whole movie with the rest of the people in the room. **

**[But I was the loudest one there. :D]**

**A TRIBUTE TO SEVERUS SNAPE, THE SLYTHERIN WHO DIED A GRYFFINDOR.**

**[Dedicated to the amazing author, Joanne Kathleen Rowling.]**

His body violently convulsed with agony as Nagini struck at his body, the venom seeping slowly and painfully into his blood with every bite. After a few moments, Voldemort left without a sparing glance, his faithful snake trailing after its heartless master. He tried to breathe properly but found himself gasping for every intake of breath. He let out a moan and screamed, filling the tainted air with anguished cries. Moments of his life abruptly flooded into his mind, his life flashing before his very eyes.

-:-:-:-:-

**i.**

_He was nine years old when they first met._

_He silently stood on the far edge of the playground, watching two girls, a blonde and redhead, playing. The boy came there everyday and was always curiously observing them, especially the one with dark red hair. But he never went up to them for he had always been a shy, awkward boy that barely socialized with anyone. He suddenly saw something strange happen with the red-headed girl: a flower bloomed into her palm. _

_The blond-haired girl started shrieking, "Freak! Wait till I tell Mummy, you freak!"_

_The red-headed girl's green eyes filled with tears when her sister ran home, leaving her standing alone on the playground with a flower in her hand. A frown materialized onto his face at her sister's cruelty and lack of understanding. An enmity for the blond-haired girl had grown. He stepped forward and introduced himself as a wizard, a wizard named Severus Snape. She smiled and said her name was Lily Evans. They both beamed and sat down in the grass under a willow tree._

_He did some magic to prove that he wasn't lying about being a wizard, and Lily laughed in delight of meeting someone just like her. Slowly they became good friends._

_He never forgot the amazing sound of her laughter._

**ii.**

_They were sitting on the Hogwarts train together when two dark-haired boys came barging into their compartment. He immediately disliked the cocky messy-haired boy with his glasses askew. The other boy kept looking at a group of girls and throwing them a slow grin._

_The boy with glasses asked, "Hullo, I'm James. Which house do you want to be placed in?"_

_He immediately said, "Slytherin, of course!"_

_The boy looked affronted and disgusted with him and yelled, "How could you possibly want to be in _Slytherin_? I want to be in Gryffindor, the house of the brave," and mimed thrusting a word into the air._

_The other supercilious boy that kept looking at the girls sullenly spoke, "My whole family's always been in Slytherin."_

_The messy-haired boy looked even more appalled and said, "Oy. I thought you were decent, Sirius!"_

_Sirius shrugged and looked out the window at the lush rolling hills of the countryside._

_Severus just looked at him nastily and snidely remarked, "If you'd rather have brawn than brains…"_

_James grew purple in the face and took out his wand to cast a spell. Severus also whipped out his wand just as Lily shouted, "Stop it! Stop arguing over this trivial matter."_

_James' hazel eyes widened as he saw Lily for the first time. He apologized with a dumbfounded look on his face, but Severus' best friend just narrowed her eyes at him. She asked them to get out of their compartment, and they quickly obliged._

"_You alright, Sev?" Lily asked concernedly._

_He mumbled, "Fine, thanks," and gazed out of the window for the rest of the ride._

…

"_GRYFFINDOR!" the Sorting Hat shouted, its booming voice rippling across the Great Hall._

_His shoulders slumped when he saw Lily throwing him an rueful look before dashing from the stool to the Gryffindor table. He saw the older students congratulating her and patting her on the back. Her smile captivated him._

_He got sorted into Slytherin a few moments later. Severus jealously watched James trying to engage Lily in a conversation but laughed when he saw her swatting at James with a scowl on her face. A prefect named Lucius Malfoy greeted him and was the only person to give him a congratulatory pat on the back. He feebly smiled at him, grateful that someone welcomed him into his new House._

_Every single day at Hogwarts, he wished he was in the same House as Lily._

**iii.**

_James and Sirius had been teasing him after their O.W.L.S. exams. They used his own spell against him, lifting him up in the air and showing his underwear to everyone in the crowd around them. It was horribly humiliating and infuriating. He found something to lash out at in anger, and it so happened to be Lily, who was defending him. _

_It was the day he had inadvertently called Lily a Mudblood in the heat of the moment. The day he realized his love for his beautiful best friend but lost her. The worst day of his life._

_The whole year, he desperately tried to make Lily forgive him. He apologized profusely whenever he got her alone, but all he got was a cold, indifferent look on her beautiful heart-shaped face. Those emerald eyes of hers that always entranced him held no emotion whenever she looked at him. _

_Nothing worked. Every night, he lay in his bed and cried himself to sleep._

_The year his whole world had collapsed. _

**iv.**

_The day his heart broke into a million pieces was in his seventh year when he discovered Lily and James dancing in the rain and kissing. Lily and James had become friends over their seventh year and Head Boy and Girl, but he never expected their friendship to blossom into something more. _

_He gritted his teeth as he walked away, anger written all over his face. Severus hexed everyone who got in his way as he trudged up the staircases to the Slytherin tower. _

_He dashed into the seventh-year boys' dormitories, pulled the curtains around his bed shut, and wept openly at the complete loss of the love of his life._

**v.**

_He had just learned that Voldemort was planning to kill Lily and James, who had gotten married and had a little boy named Harry. He was a professor at the time; he was the Potions master. Voldemort was mainly seeking to kill the boy, but Severus knew the Potters loved their son so much and would get in his way of killing Harry. He knew that Voldemort would kill them in an instant; Voldemort would do anything to prevent anyone from killing him. _

_He pleaded with Dumbledore to protect the Potters, and Dumbledore immediately promised to do everything in his power to help them. Dumbledore asked them to cast the Fidelius charm and choose their Secret Keeper. Severus immediately knew their Secret Keeper would be Sirius and prayed that he wouldn't be stupid enough to ever indulge someone about this solemn secret._

_When he got back to his bedroom near the Potions dungeon, he knelt down and stared unblinkingly at the barren wall. _

_For the first time in his life, he prayed to God and asked him to save his Lily._

**vi.**

_They were murdered. But Dumbledore had _promised _to keep them safe. To keep _Lily _safe. He headed straight up to Dumbledore's office when he received the devastating news. He shouted, ranted, and screamed at Professor Dumbledore, who had tears brimming in his blue eyes. _

"_I tried. They had changed their Secret Keeper to Peter," Dumbledore whispered, his voice cracking._

"_Let Harry die. He brought about Lily's death!" he recklessly shouted._

_Fury and rage took control of his mind as he blindly picked objects up and threw them, shattering them. Dumbledore just merely flicked his wand and everything was repaired. This series of actions repeated in an endless cycle._

"_Harry. He has Lily's eyes," Dumbledore suddenly said._

_Severus suddenly stopped—his heart breaking as he remembered her emerald eyes that conveyed such emotion and brightened his days. A tear slipped down his face, causing rivulets to course down his gaunt face. _

**vii.**

_He Apparated to the Potters' destroyed home in Godric's Hollow. He rushed up the stairs and stopped in his tracks when he saw Lily dead. Oh, his beautiful, caring Lily. He'd always loved her long curly hair that spilled in crimson waves onto her shoulders so effortlessly. He'd always loved her eyes; he loved it how they sparkled whenever they landed upon Severus. He'd always loved how she wasn't like her fellow Gryffindors, how she studied with him in the library in their free periods. He'd always loved her for being her no matter what. He missed her terribly because he had no study partner; he missed the Lily that never used to interact with the Marauders._

_He ran forward and picked Lily up in his arms, tightly holding her to him. He rocked back and forth muttering sweet things to her, remembering those brilliant days spent with her. Severus succumbed to a river of tears flowing freely. He cried for his Lily, for her son who was now an orphan. Orphaned because of Voldemort's evil deeds._

_The innocent, confused look on Harry's face just about killed him. He cried when he looked into Harry's eyes. He had Lily's eyes, just like Dumbledore said. Severus' onyx eyes let out more tears of pain. This was too much for him to take in. He couldn't believe Lily was _dead_._

_She simply couldn't die. The world _(he)_ needed her. She illuminated his whole world even though she disliked him. _

_He cried because he never got to tell Lily, "I love you."_

**viii.**

"_GRYFFINDOR!" he heard the Sorting Hat shout for Harry._

_He watched Harry run to the Gryffindor table with a beam on his face at the claps and cheers he received. Harry grinned at the congratulatory pats he got on his back, but his smile faltered when he saw Severus with a dark look in his eyes._

_Severus disliked him. He was _exactly _like James: a cocky, arrogant prat._

…

_He was teaching Harry in his fifth year to be a successful Occlumens. Harry was incredibly horrible at Occlumency and he lost his patience with the messy-haired fifth year during every lesson. He could barely restrain himself from crying whenever he looked into Harry's defiant emerald eyes filled with hate. Lily's eyes shouldn't _ever _be filled with abhorrence. _

_He was furious when he discovered that the stupid boy had looked into his Pensieve and saw his worst memory. He told the troubled boy that his father was a conceited, arrogant prat that was too lazy to ever do anything useful in his life. He immediately regretted it as he saw the hate-filled look in those emerald eyes deepen._

_He told Harry to get out of his classroom and never come back._

_He leaned against the wall and slid down, staring into nothingness as memories of her dazzling green eyes clouded his mind. _

**ix.**

_Dumbledore had been weakening because of the ring, which was a Horcrux, had powerful enchantments and caused his frail hand to turn a gruesome black. He was asked how long the headmaster would live; he examined the hand and grimly announced he had only about a year to live._

…

_He learned that Draco was ordered to kill Dumbledore, who he had grown rather fond of. He became rather distraught and immediately took this up to the headmaster. He used to be a Death Eater, but now he had joined the Order of the Phoenix a few years ago and spied on the Death Eaters for Dumbledore. _

_When he informed Dumbledore of what he had recently discovered, he expected Dumbledore to get angry and expel Draco or something of that sort. But Dumbledore did no such thing; he ordered Severus to kill him when the time came because he knew Draco would fail to kill him. _

_He protested with a look of dread and fear encompassing his face. The look in Dumbledore's blue twinkling eyes softened as he explained to him his plan. Apparently, Voldemort still distrusted him because he was working at Hogwarts; he needed to "gain his trust" by finishing the headmaster off. _

_He trembled at what Dumbledore had just ordered him to do; how could he possibly murder this valiant, intelligent man? Dumbledore was the father he never knew. But he reluctantly consented to Dumbledore's wishes._

**x.**

_They were having a discussion over Harry and his progress during the years. Dumbledore suddenly brought up the topic of Harry having to defeat Voldemort. The headmaster divulged to him that Harry was the eighth Horcrux that Voldemort never meant to create. Harry had become one of the Horcrux because that fateful night when Voldemort tried to kill Harry his soul broke and tried to latch itself onto the nearest living thing, which happened to be Harry._

_So, Dumbledore concluded that Harry had to die himself and rise again to kill Voldemort._

_He cried, "No, no! You've raised Harry to this age of seventeen for _manslaughter_?"_

_Dumbledore inquisitively looked at him as he amusedly questioned, "Severus, surely you haven't grown…_fond _of the boy, have you?"_

_He fiercely shook his head at Dumbledore's ridiculous words. He couldn't have possibly grown to care for Lily's son, could he? That was preposterous! He was exactly like his father!_

_But he had Lily's eyes…_

_Dumbledore's piercing blue gaze penetrated his own black eyes filled with conflicting emotions and softly said, "It's been her all along, hasn't it? You've loved Lily all this time, haven't you?"_

_Severus took a huge, shaky breath as he tearfully whispered, "Always."_

**xi.**

_The night came. The night to kill his replacement father came. They, Harry and Dumbledore, had come back from their mission to find another Horcrux. Dumbledore cast a Silencing Charm over Harry and told him to get away. Dumbledore was shuddering, pain wracking his body and contorting his aged face into a weak grimace._

_The time had come. Dumbledore was about to die._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fearful Draco hiding, waiting to finish him off. He noticed Harry, apprehensive and tense, and told him to stay hidden and quiet. _

_Draco's wand arm was shaking, his face distorted with fright and indecision, as he pointed his wand at Dumbledore. _

_The sixteen-year-old Malfoy was about to mutter the Killing Spell when he suddenly cried, "I can't do this. I just can't!"_

_Severus emerged out of the shadows, taking a huge gulp of air and a last glance at his mentor. His mentor, who had stayed and talked to him all these years. His mentor, who had comforted him, cared for him like a father. The father he never had._

_He shakily drew his wand and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"_

_He never forgot the looks on Dumbledore's and Harry's faces: Dumbledore, peaceful at last, and Harry, infuriated and vengeful. _

-:-:-:-:-

He was aroused from the memories lingering in the back of his tortured mind when he felt his face being tenderly held by a pair of calloused hands. It was Harry with a mixture of pain, worry, and fear etched onto his dirt-streaked face. A tear slipped from his onyx eyes when he saw those emerald eyes, caring and full of emotion again. Lily's eyes…

He felt something neither liquid nor gas slowly trickling out of his mouth, ears, and eyes. It was silvery-blue. He saw Harry's emerald eyes widen and become perplexed and terrified at the macabre sight of him. A vial was conjured up in Hermione's hands, and the girl handed it to Harry, who quickly pressed the vial to the side of his face and captured the silvery-blue substance.

Then he felt no more. He was slowly dying. He felt the life ebbing away from him, taking away one memory at a time. His breaths became more ragged, and he trembled from the effort of it.

He touched the side of Harry's face and looked into the eyes that so reminded him of Lily.

_Lily's eyes…_

All the memories were gone; all he could see was Harry's face, his eyes.

He whispered, "Look at me…you have…your mother's…eyes…"

He glimpsed tears spilling out of Harry's (_Lily's_) emerald eyes. He hoped that with those memories contained in that silvery-blue substance Harry would be able to forgive him for all of his wrongdoings. He took one last, staggering breath and then breathed no more.

He felt himself soaring and drifting, his soul carried away by the gentle wind. He suddenly found himself in a white space. The white space got clearer, and he began to recognize it as the playground and meadow where he first met Lily.

_It looked exactly the same._

A slender, smooth hand soothingly touched his arm. He turned around, and _there she was_.

His beautiful Lily, unchanged and as breathtakingly _beautiful_ as he remembered her.

He hugged her fiercely, not wanting to ever let her go again. The last few years of his life had been incredibly _impossible _without her. They had been impossible without her bright green eyes and sweet smile. He'd missed everything about her.

_And now she was back in his arms._

"Sev…I've missed you so much. I had forgiven you the first moment you apologized, but I was a being a stubborn cow. I'm so sorry, Sev," she softly spoke.

"I've missed you too. I…I love you," he quietly whispered back.

"I love you too but only as my best friend and brother. My love for you could never match the one you hold for me. I'm with James. I'm…I'm sorry, Sev," she said with tears glistening in those emotion-filled emerald eyes of hers that he missed so much over the years.

His smile faltered for a moment and hung his head.

"I…I understand, Lily. I know your love lies with someone else. But…we're still best friends, are we?" he said with a hopeful light back in his black eyes.

"Yes. Yes, we are. Forever and _ever_, Sev," she said beaming with the prettiest smile he'd ever seen.

_A smile he'd never forgotten…_

…

Over the years, they, _meaning Dumbledore, Lily, the Marauders, and him_, proudly watched Harry become an Auror, husband to Ginevra Molly Weasley, and a wonderful father and uncle to his new family.

They watched Harry take his last breath at the wonderful old age of ninety. They joyously welcomed him into heaven, embracing him. They were all young together again. He saw Harry's blissful face at being able to hug his parents for the first time. Severus also tightly embraced Harry and smiled at the shocked, happy look on his face.

They were soon joined by more Weasleys—Ron, Ginny, George, Percy, Bill, and Charlie. They met with Molly and Arthur Weasley, who had died a few years before.

_They became a huge family. The family he'd never had…_

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><p><strong>AN: Well...I didn't mean to write this long of a tribute; I only meant to write 4-5 pages. But this turned out to be eight pages long because I got caught up with the emotion while writing this.**

**I certainly hope you enjoyed this. Please tell me what you think!**

_**~muSicLuHvER(:**_


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